Category Archives: overpayment

Note to readers—please read the post below, “Pulse—More Stories from the Heart of Medicine” (which includes “One More Child Left Behind”) before you read this post.

When I read “One More Child Left Behind,” all I could think of was how much Aaron’s arm must have hurt during the more than 24 hours that he didn’t receive treatment. I also imagined how frightened and bewildered the six-year-old must have been as he heard his mother and grandmother talk, and realized that they couldn’t persuade a doctor to help him.

Why on earth would we pay doctors and hospital less to care for poor patients than we would pay them to care for the elderly?

Lower Medicaid fees are part of the legacy of racism. (I write about this in Money-Driven Medicine.) When the Medicare and Medicaid laws were passed in 1965, Southern Congressmen refused to agree to laws that would pay doctors who treated the poor as much as they reimburse physicians who care for older patients.

At the time, relatively few African-Americans living in the South were over 65. Most died long before they would be eligible for Medicare. Yet many African-Americans were poor, and would qualify for Medicaid. This is what disturbed Southern legislators. They wanted to make sure that healthcare remained segregated.

Even under Reform, Specialists Who Treat the Poor Will be Under-Paid

Medicaid rates vary widely by state, but on average, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the new program will offer PCP’s a 73 percent raise This should open doors for millions of Medicaid patients. In some states that have been paying the lowest rates, the hike will be much higher. (See this map) The ACA guarantees raising Medicaid reimbursements for primary care for just two years (2013-2014). But I expect this program will be extended, although increases may be modified. Once begun, it will be very hard to justify ending it.

At the same time, specialists who care for Medicaid patients will continue to receive about 1/3 less than when treating seniors. As a result, even under the ACA a great many Medicaid patients will be hard-pressed to find a specialist willing to see them.Continue reading →

Last week, in his State of the Union address, President Obama embraced the first two: “Already, the Affordable Care Act is helping to slow the growth of health care costs,” he noted. “The reforms I’m proposing go even further. We’ll reduce taxpayer subsidies to prescription drug companies and ask more from the wealthiest seniors.” (In time, I suspect that the administration also will call for a ban on those decidedly seamy “pay for delay” deals.)

At 4:30 this afternoon, CNN updated its story: “Both sides agree the wealthy will pay more, so now fiscal cliff talks come down to how much Republicans can wring out of the White House in return for giving in on taxes.

“To President Barack Obama, it’s all about first locking in additional revenue from raising taxes on high-income owners, an outcome the GOP has long rejected.”

President Obama had made it clear that negotiations over government spending on safety nets such as Medicare wouldn’t begin until Republicans accepted a higher marginal tax rate for individuals earning over $200,000 and couples earning over $250,000.

The president dug in, and, according to CNN, he has won round one.

“Retiring Republican Rep. Steve LaTourette of Ohio told CNN on Thursday that he sensed a shift in the House GOP approach during a conference meeting the day before.

“A GOP source told CNN that talks between staff members on both sides resumed Thursday for the first time this week, after Obama and Boehner spoke by phone the day before.”

A Two-Step Approach

It is not clear whether negotiations over so-called “entitlements” will be concluded before the end of the year. But CNN, reports

“Even conservatives such as Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal acknowledge the obvious — taxes on the wealthy are going up despite opposition by Republicans.

“‘Whatever deal is reached is going to contain elements that are detrimental to our economy,’ Jindal wrote Thursday in an opinion piece published by Politico. ‘Elections have consequences, and the country is going to feel those consequences soon.’”

Obamacare will “keep unemployment high,” Tanner claims, because under reform legislation, businesses that have at least 50 employees working over 30 hours a week are expected to offer their workers affordable health insurance. If they choose not to, and more than 30 of their employees qualify for government subsidies to help them purchase their own coverage, the employer must pay a penalty of $3,000 for each worker who receives a subsidy— up to a maximum of $2,000 times the number of the company’s full-time employee minus 30. (The Kaiser Family Foundation offers an excellent graphic explaining the rule.)

Gallery

Why do some hospitals and doctors charge far more than others for exactly the same routine procedure? “Because they can; it’s not any more sophisticated than that,” says Gerard Anderson, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Hospital Finance and … Continue reading →

Below, a guest-post from Naomi Freundlich. This post originally appeared earlier this week, on Reforming Health , Naomi’s new blog. (Many Health Beat readers will remember Naomi as Health Beat’s associate editor back when we were both working for The Century Foundation.)

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If you or a loved one has been to the emergency room lately you might want to request an itemized bill. The highest charge will likely be for what is known in billing parlance as “evaluation and management” services. These services include taking a patient history, performing an initial exam and directing treatment. How much the hospital charges will depend on an all-important choice of billing code—there are a range of codes that coincide with factors like the severity of the problem, underlying health issues of the patient and in some cases, time spent managing this care.

Why take a close look at these charges? According to a new investigative report from teh center for Public Integrity providers have been increasing their use of billing codes that correspond with care for the most seriously ill or injured patients, adding $11 billion or more to the fees they receive from Medicare over the last decade.

According to the CPI report; “Use of the top two most expensive codes for emergency room care nationwide nearly doubled, from 25 percent to 45 percent of all claims, during the time period examined. In many cases, these claims were not for treating patients with life-threatening injuries. Instead, the claims the Center analyzed included only patients who were sent home from the emergency room without being admitted to the hospital. Often, they were treated for seemingly minor injuries and complaints.”Continue reading →